Biografia

In July 2011, Mark gave the Tony Award he had earned in "Jerusalem" to Mickey Lay, a 71-year-old builder and resident of Pewsey, a small village west of London. Lay had inspired and helped him to create the Gypsy character he played in his acclaimed Broadway role.

Although he's generally regarded as one of the greatest Shakesperean actors, he is a somewhat controversial figure among scholars due to his support for the Oxfordian theory, which is one of many schools of thought stating that Shakespeare wasn't the author of any of the works attributed to him. He agreed to appear in the film Anônimo (2011), which is based on the Oxfordian theory, in order to draw more attention to the authorship debate.

His family moved to the US in 1962, when his father was hired to teach at the Choate School, in Connecticut. They moved to Milwaukee in 1969, where his father was in charge of upper-level English at the University School.

University School of Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Class of 1978.

He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1994 (1993 season) for Best Actor for his performance in Much Ado About Nothing.

There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.

Well, my wife always says to me, and I think it's true, it's very difficult for us to understand the Elizabethan understanding and enjoyment and perception of form as it is to say... it would be for them to understand computers or going to the moon or something.

Great actors try to dismiss all ideas from their conscious mind in order to provide an experience that is real.

So there's a lot of people tied into believing that the traditional response to the authorship question. In terms of actors, some people get very angry about it.